


we can't be friends

by storytellingape



Category: Girls (TV), Peter Rabbit (2018), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Anal Sex, Dialogue Heavy, Domestic Fluff, Kylux Adjacent Ship, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Romantic Comedy, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 23:27:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14412777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storytellingape/pseuds/storytellingape
Summary: Adam and Thomas are dating. This is not news to anybody except themselves.





	we can't be friends

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fourth McSackler fic and I still haven't watched Girls. Takes place after Thomas gets fired then backtracks to notable moments in his and Adam's "non-relationship". I had such fun writing this. Richard Curtis, this one's for you lol.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Thomas shows up at Adam’s apartment with a bag slung over his shoulder. 

“Jesus,” Adam says. “It’s eleven o’clock at night. Have you ever heard of calling?”

“I have an emergency,” Thomas declares with a completely blank face before barreling straight into the living room where he methodically starts taking off his clothes starting with his cufflinks.

Adam stares at him and then crosses his arms. He and Thomas have varying opinions on what constitutes an emergency so he can’t be blamed for finding the whole thing a little suspect. “Did something happen? Was it your cat? I didn’t even know you had a cat. Please don’t drink from that glass of water. It’s been there a week.”

Thomas sighs, barely able to withhold a frown as he drinks from the glass anyway. “I prefer not to get into the specifics,” he says and then shrugs off his jacket, the nice one that he wears to work that’s beautifully tailored to accentuate the taper of his waist. 

By the time Adam realizes what this is all leading up to, Thomas’ tie has already been discarded, and he’s slipped off his shoes, leaving him standing in Adam’s living room in only his socks, a flimsy undershirt, and his pants halfway undone and tented at the front. 

Despite all this, and including the disheveled hair, Adam still thinks he’s a vision, which is probably why instead of driving Thomas out of his apartment for being a complete nuisance he says, “huh,” instead. 

Thomas cuts him an expectant look, tapping his foot. “I came here to with the goal of sexual intercourse,” he announces primly. 

“You know when you put it that way, I find myself almost irrevocably charmed,” Adam snorts.

Another cutting look; a man with lesser fortitude would have been torn to shreds but not Adam; he grew up in Brooklyn, he had a New York stride. He tugs his shirt over his head in response. 

“And please close the door behind you,” Thomas adds, as soon as Adam’s shirt is off.

Adam levels him with a look of his own before doing an abrupt about-face to shut the door and lock it. “Anything else? Breath mints? A towel? Would you like me to carry you to bed too?”

“I’d appreciate the last one enormously,” Thomas says, after a lengthy pause. “Though I wouldn’t say no to some breath mints later on as sucking your cock gives me the worst bout of halitosis. It’s absolutely dreadful. Frankly I don’t know why I put up with it.” 

“Right,” Adam says dryly, thinking about the few things he too must up with mostly in relation to Thomas. His erection flags a little by the time he’s made it partway down that list. “Sorry, my cock like, gives you bad breath,” he settles on. 

Thomas waves him off. “It’s not the most terrible thing I’ve put in my mouth, granted.” 

“Okay, yeah,” Adam says, trying to be flippant but succeeding only in sounding confused. 

When Thomas lifts his arms towards him, Adam yanks him up without fanfare and then proceeds to carry him over the threshold of his bedroom, narrowly avoiding knocking over a standing lamp with Thomas’ head.

“I have an early audition tomorrow,” Adam tells Thomas as he deposits him on top of the tumult of bedding and slivers of a nature sounds remix CD that he’d smashed to pieces when it failed to cure his insomnia. “I should probably be asleep before one AM, just so you know.”

“I doubt we’ll be very long anyway,” Thomas muses. “Are we ever?”

Adam stares.

* * *

 

 

The night in which Adam first met Thomas ended poorly. 

Adam was at a pub, for the usual myriad of reasons though he’d been sober for almost a year after a steady rotation of therapy and A&A. 

Still: he liked bars, or pubs as they were called in these parts, something about the atmosphere, the people, the look and heft of an overpriced malt in his hand. It reminded him of the good old days, before he realized he had a problem and would often drink himself to a stupor, when the blackouts didn’t bother him so much as they were simply minor inconveniences. When life was good. Before Hannah. 

Anyway, Adam bumped into Thomas on his way to the men’s room and spilled about half of his drink all over Thomas’ horrifically expensive suit. Apologies were exchanged, as were a few carefully chosen barbs which Thomas doled out liberally in an unnervingly crisp accent. 

In the end Adam got shafted into paying for dry-cleaning. Thomas handed him his business card so they could keep in touch: cream-colored and tasteful, the letter H embossed at the back in delicate typeset, italicized. On the other side his contact details were listed: a cell phone number, an e-mail address, a landline and extension. Also his place of work. 

_ Harrods. Brompton Rd, Knightsbridge, London.  _

Adam flicked the card over and over in his hand on his way home that evening. It wasn’t until he was walking to his apartment, fishing his keys out of his back pocket, that he discovered he’d been pickpocketed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The first time they had sex was three weeks after that night in the pub. 

Thomas was on top, literally. 

Riding Adam into the mattress, his chest glistening with a thin film of perspiration. He still had his socks on, and Adam noticed belatedly while Thomas was having the time of his life impaling himself on his cock, that they were the exact color of Thomas’ tie which Thomas was currently using as a makeshift gag. Apparently, Adam talked too much. This wouldn’t be the first time someone said that though it was the first time anyone did anything about it short of punching him in the face.

The sex was good: filthy, sloppy, stopping for nothing, which surprised Adam because he never pegged Thomas for the type. He thought Thomas had sex primly, like he did everything else. On his back, missionary, with all the lights closed, under the covers, when in reality he was the exact opposite, dirty and beautiful, unfolding his legs for Adam at the slightest provocation. He was also unbelievably eager, willing to try almost anything. 

There were clothes in random heaps on the hotel floor. Adam was surprised they made it to the bed at all after they’d practically torn each other’s clothes off as soon as the door shut behind them. 

Thomas had insisted on meeting in The Beaufort Hotel where the decor matched his expensive palate. 

It was a five minute walk from Harrods, with a quaint little in-house café served by waiters dressed better than Adam. Thomas had a cucumber and cream sandwich with the crusts cut off. Adam didn’t order anything.He drank an entire glass of water, apologized for having ruined Thomas’ suit then signed him a check, and was prepared to leave until Thomas remarked casually how absurdly comfortable the beds were in the hotel, Egyptian cotton. 

And it was such an innocuous comment, well within the realms of Thomas’ personality to make, because in the half hour Adam had known him, he said things like that all the time. He’d even complemented the waiter on his shoes only to recommend he get a newer pair with lightly cushioned insole arch support, which was only £179 from Kurt Geiger and available at Harrods.

Adam stayed, utterly charmed against all odds. He stayed and they talked, or at least he listened to Thomas talk, for almost two hours. About his job and how difficult it was to keep up with the rising cost of rent in Kensington. About Politics. The suspicious rash in his armpit that worried him constantly. Then they fucked. Several times throughout the night.

The second round was even better than the first, with Thomas on all fours, getting rug burn on his knees. The third had them displacing the mini-fridge. The fourth was in the tub. The fifth and final time was in bed, in the dark, with the lights turned all the way down, and the covers pulled up to Adam’s waist as he hovered above Thomas and fucked him sweet and slow. They never kissed. Adam didn’t mind. There were other ways to utilize a mouth. Kissing was only one of them.

Adam was going to leave after pulling out and coming onto Thomas’ stomach, but he hadn’t even made it halfway to the door when he turned the opposite direction and started taking his clothes off again. He told himself it was the unbelievably springy bed, the 800 thread count, the free breakfast buffet the next morning, and not how well Thomas seemed to fit in the crook of his arms or the contented little sigh that escaped him when Adam spooned him and pressed his face to his neck. He smelled really nice. 

Adam fell asleep, nose buried in his hair.

 

* * *

 

 

They finish after barely an hour as per routine. Adam stretches onto his back, folding an arm behind his head, watching light spilling in through the curtains cut crisscross patterns on the ceiling. He yawns, his eyes pulling down heavily. Sex with Thomas always made him sleepy afterward. Not tired, or exhausted. Just sleepy. Like a night of heavy drinking minus the blackout and unpleasant hangover the morning afterward.

“Are you going to tell me about what happened?” Adam remembers to ask, already half asleep. He mumbles the question into Thomas’ shoulder when he arranges himself exactly to Thomas’ preference, caging his smaller body in his, stroking the soft skin of his stomach absently.

Thomas pauses, doesn’t move for a long, long time. “There’s nothing to tell,” he says, sounding resigned. 

Adam knows him well enough to recognize this as a lie but he doesn’t press. 

It’s none of his business, anyway. 

He shouldn’t care at all. 

He doesn’t. 

Besides, it’s not like they’re in a relationship. Still, he squeezes Thomas a few times before rolling over to his side of the bed and shutting off the lights. 

“Night,” he mutters. 

Thomas doesn’t reply. 

* * *

 

 

Two weeks after that night at The Beaufort Hotel, Adam needed a suit. 

It was for some work event, an actor’s guild he was a part of, and he was going to both present and accept an award he was supposed to act shocked and humbled to receive. He spent an hour looking at suits online but didn’t feel comfortable ordering something that might not fit him. He had an awkward body, a thick chest, big arms. The suits he’d had the displeasure of renting were either too big or too small on him; otherwise they made him look like he was attending his own funeral. 

This was only the beginning of a slew of awards parties his agent planned to foist him onto for PR so a new suit seemed like the best option, a good investment. 

His leather jacket was starting to show signs of wear; it was only a matter of time before Adam was forced to retire it from his wardrobe.

Adam took the tube and got off at Knightsbridge station, then wandered into Harrods to take a look at the selection of suits: Tom Ford, Lanvin, Canali, Paul Smith. They were all so beautiful, arranged in gradients of light to dark. He could see himself wearing each of them, commanding the respect of his peers. He walked out twenty minutes later, wanting to set everything on fire after one glance at the price tags. He made enough money after a series of semi-successful acting gigs but there was no way in hell he was going to shell out £1450 on a suit he was only going to wear a few times. He bought a croissant instead from the café across the street to thaw his irritable mood, and was standing in line to pay for a coffee when the man in front of him turned. 

It was Thomas.

Adam thought he recognized the pale curl of his ear from somewhere. It was not until a little later that he realized it was from having spent a considerable amount of time kneeling behind Thomas, fucking him on his hands and knees. He had stared at that ear long enough to know what it looked like up close, whether bitten or flushed or simply in its natural unadorned state. 

“You again,” Thomas said. He sounded both confused and shocked. Adam would be too. He hadn’t called him after that time, after all. He didn’t like talking on the phone. And texting had always seemed trite to him. He wouldn’t know what to say anyway. 

After the breakfast buffet, they had another go of it in the bathroom and Adam almost slipped on the tile trying to fuck Thomas against the shower wall. They parted ways rather amicably. That was the end of that. 

Now there was all this tension hovering between them, thick like plastic sheeting. Adam decided to cut through it with a twitchy smile. 

“I was shopping for suits,” he informed Thomas, chewing his croissant noisily. 

“Were you,” Thomas said, and glanced at the croissant in Adam’s right hand. 

“This place makes the best damn croissants I’ve ever had in my life,” Adam told him. “And I don’t say that lightly. The best.”

Thomas sipped his coffee while Adam paid for his. When he finished, they fell into step together. Outside, the weather was mild, almost bland, but the coffee was rich and dark. Passersby swept past them in leisurely trickles. He could tell it was going to be a good day. 

“Did you know,” Thomas said as they began walking the length of the street, “that the shop was established in 1909 by a Frenchman who was obsessed with teas and British culture? The first shop was built in Baker Street as a tea room and restaurant and there are only two other shops in the whole United Kingdom, one in Mayfair, and the other in Piccadilly. Migrating businessoverseas has been a slow-going process. There’s a shop located in Oman, nowhere else.”

Adam stared at him. It wouldn’t be the first time. He stared at Thomas a lot whether it was because he was being ridiculous or unabashedly rude. At that moment however, a slice of attraction cut cleanly through any other thoughts Adam might have had, and he found himself smiling in spite of himself. 

“Is there nothing you don’t know?” Adam asked, amused. 

Thomas tilted his head thoughtfully. “You were shopping for suits, you said?” 

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Thomas is still there in the form of a pale calf sticking out of a mountain of bedding. He doesn’t snore but he does grind his teeth in his sleep. Adam tries waking him a few times but to no avail; the man sleeps like the dead, barely moving even after Adam gives the mattress a bounce.

He decides to leave it alone for now; Thomas will fuck off whenever he wants to. That’s always been the arrangement since this whole thing started. Adam is not one to mess with tradition. 

So he showers, throws on some clothes, announces loudly that he’ll be going now and there’s some food in the fridge if Thomas wants to help himself to it. When he comes home that afternoon after an audition he’d stormed out of that has his phone ringing all day, courtesy of his agent, Thomas still hasn’t left and is sitting casually on the sofa wearing a blue silk bathrobe over his pyjamas. He appears to not have moved at all from the vicinity he planted himself in since this morning. His hair is uncombed, sticking up at the back. A sleek MacBook Air is resting on his knees, plugged into a charger. He glances up when Adam enters but it’s a delayed reaction, slow. A white Apple earbud dangles from his shoulder. 

When Adam gets close enough, he hears a series of explosions issuing out of said earbud, and the familiar droll voice of Hans Gruber saying, _do you really think you have a chance against us, Mr. Cowboy?_

He’s watching Die Hard.

Adam lifts a hand in an awkward wave. “Hey,” he says, tossing his bag onto the sofa. 

“I’ve never seen this movie before,” Thomas tells him. 

Adam thinks this is fucked up but also expected and still says nothing about it. “Have you eaten?” he asks instead, hanging his coat on the hook behind the door, and then unbuttoning his shirt out of habit. Then he remembers Thomas is watching and aborts the movement, leaving him with his shirt hanging half-open at the chest.

Thomas blinks at him. “I might have gotten breakfast,” he says, sounding dazed. “I can’t remember.” He shrugs one shoulder and fiddles with the loose tie of his robe. 

Adam has seen that robe make an appearance a few times before, the first time when Thomas had invited him to his flat to look at his plumbing and then rode him on the floor as a thank you. He kept the robe on the entire time, wearing absolutely nothing underneath, the pale slip of a thigh peeking out as he straddled Adam’s lap comfortably. 

“I’ll order some takeout,” Adam announces, disappearing into the kitchen to yank the flyers pinned on the fridge door under a crowd of tourist magnets. He pokes his head out a minute later, phone in hand, to ask Thomas how he feels about curry but then stops himself when he sees Thomas just sitting there as he’d left him, staring off into space, not moving. 

Something has happened; Adam knows this as much. But he’s still too chickenshit to ask because he doesn’t want any part of it. He hates drama; he had enough of that with Hannah and her little group of friends. And he’s not Thomas’ boyfriend, here to coddle him or to clean up his messes. He’d been there before and it gave him a mild ulcer.

“We’re getting curry tonight,” Adam tells him, already dialing the number of his favourite naan place that makes home deliveries. 

Thomas just blinks at him again and nods. 

Adam swallows, glancing away sharply just as the other line picks up. As a small concession to Thomas, he hands him the takeout flyer so he can order for himself. 

 

* * *

 

 

Thomas invited Adam to his second cousin’s wedding in Hampstead. 

Adam accepted solely because he had nothing better to do on a Saturday morning. It was a little last minute but he still had the dinner jacket Thomas helped him pick out from a second-hand store in a mid-income neighborhood in London, the one with the peaked lapels.

It was an unseasonably warm day and Thomas wore a powder blue dress shirt which he folded at the elbows. He also wore jeans because he fucking hated his second-cousin with a passion and made it a point to ably demonstrate the fact by not adhering to the dress code. 

Still, Adam thought he looked really nice. His hair was impeccable as ever, and he wore his favourite watch, the thin leather almost abraded. It had been a gift from Thomas’ dad who’d inherited from _his_ dad, so on and so forth, and the only reason Adam knew of this story was because Thomas tended to overshare whether or not he was drunk.

He must have been staring at Thomas for a full minute before Thomas rolled his eyes and waved his hands in front of Adam’s face. Adam shook himself out of it and held out his arm but instead of taking it Thomas backed away. 

Apparently this was going to be that kind of date.

“I loathe her for almost putting the whole family in debt but I won’t scandalize the masses,” Thomas told him, looking horrified.

Adam stared at him. Finally, it hit him. “They’re _that_ kind of people then, huh,” he said knowingly.

Thomas pressed his lips together primly, embarrassed by his own reaction, shifting his gaze. “Yes,” he sniffed, and rubbed self-consciously at his elbow. “Quite.”

The reception was beautiful: in a charming little garden surrounded by lush foilage and tall towering trees. The food was great, the alcohol overflowing, the music minimally boring, string renditions of popular ballads. 

Adam had been introduced to two of Thomas’ aunts at the wedding, and met a few of his cousins shortly thereafter: Rupert, Henry, Tristan and Charlie who all played tennis on the weekends, smoked Dunhills, and wore Belruti loafers. Then there were Tuppence and Margot, both gorgeous, and married to boring business men. 

Out of all of them, threewanted to fuck Adam, including Thomas’ great aunt Olivia, and Adam amused himself with the knowledge by turning on the charm, lying about which actors he had the opportunity to work with. He made up a backstory, that was partly borrowed from a few movies, mostly _Bullets Over Broadway_ , and the rat bastards ate it all up hook, line, and sinker. 

After a while, it got boring. Adam wished, not for the first time, that he still drank.

By midday, Thomas was already a little drunk himself and have devolved into that state wherein he felt sorry himself and hated everyone, slumped in one of the tables as he stared at the champagne glass in his hand. Adam wandered over to him from the buffet table and sat next to him. He’d seen how Thomas’ family treated each other; they were mean and cold and reveled in each other’s misery.

And Thomas seemed to take the brunt of it: he wasn’t a lawyer, he didn’t have property in Corsica. And he wasn’t married at thirty-three with a five year old in Eton. His family suspected he was a raging homosexual, which was a term they bandied like it was some sort of venereal disease. 

Adam ‘accidentally’ spilled punch all over Rupert’s expensive shirt and then fucked off from the conversation without a legitimate excuse.

“Your family are some of the worst people I’ve ever met and I’ve met a lot of assholes,” Adam told Thomas, tempted to knock back the drink in Thomas’ hand. Sometimes, he missed being a lifelong alcoholic. It had its merits.

“They’re entitled,” he continued. “Spoiled and out of touch with reality. Really, more than half of them shouldn’t procreate. By the way, I think your great aunt just pinched my ass when we posed for pictures.”

Thomas only looked mildly concerned. “She’s eighty-six, let her live a little.”

Adam shrugged. “You’re an outlier.”

“What?”

“You’re different. You’re not like any of them. You’re not a total asshole.”

Thomas didn’t seem convinced. In fact he seemed confused by the compliment, his face scrunching up as if Adam had slapped him in the face with a trout. “Well, don’t let Tuppy hear you.”

“Is that really her name? Who names their child Tuppence? At least you have a normal name. Your parents must have really loved you.”

“Well,” Thomas said, his face falling visibly at the mention of his parents. 

Adam had forgotten: they’d both died within a year of each other when he was still very young, after which he was sent by his great aunt and uncle to a boarding school in Berkshire. He practically raised himself, is the thing, which was why he was so self-reliant. Adam wondered if his parents were cold and aloof, just like the rest of his family, or if they were kind just like him. 

His mother had come from nothing, Thomas had told him, once. And had met Thomas’ dad while he was on holiday in fucking Cardiff, of all places, when he was still engaged to someone else. She was not the girl the family wanted him to marry. 

In the end, Thomas’ dad fucked off and married her anyway, saying goodbye to almost half of inheritance.

“You wanna get out of here?” Adam said, anything to dispel the depressive mood Thomas seemed to have fallen into.

The corners of Thomas’ lips twitched up into a not-quite smile. “It’s not polite to leave just yet, the reception hasn’t officially ended.”

“Right,” Adam said. He stood to his feet, stretching his legs. He glanced around: people were milling about clutching their nth glass of champagne, laughing, throwing their head back, or otherwise whispering about each other furtively. The dance floor was completely empty.

He turned back to Thomas. “How about we give the people something to talk about until then?” he offered. “How about a dance? Come on. Just one. It’s a good song. Louis Armstrong? Fuck yeah. It’s a classic.” He held out his hand. “What do you say?”

For a second Adam was terrified Thomas wasn’t going to take it, that he’d be shot down or Thomas would simply laugh it off and embarrass him. But then Thomas stood up after a few seconds of quiet hemming and hawing, and slipped his hand surely into his.

Adam squeezed, by instinct. Thomas squeezed back.

“Just one,” Thomas said, but he was grinning from ear to ear when he followed Adam to the dance floor.

 

* * *

 

The next morning is much of the same. The alarm clock rings at 8 am and Adam turns to Thomas, who is lying on his stomach in his appointed side of the bed, his feetthe only thing visible from the corner of the bed sheets. He doesn’t move. 

Calmly, Adam reaches over to the nightstand and turns the alarm off. He slips a hand inside the blanket burrito Thomas has cocooned himself inside of, gets a palmful of shoulder and shakes Thomas awake. Thomas groans in complaint before shrugging his hand off. Adam knows a lost cause when he sees one so he decides to make the most of his day, starting with making coffee for two in the kitchen before working on some hamstring stretches in the living room. After a series of pull-ups and core exercises, he has a shower and makes some lunch, cobbling together whatever seems edible in the fridge and repurposing some rotisserie chicken to that end. 

He doesn’t have anywhere to be until later that evening so he can sit in nothing but sweatpants on the sofa while eating a complicated pasta dish from a plastic bowl and breezing through his e-mails with a MacBook perched precariously on his lap.

He’s moving trash around in his spam folder, when Thomas decides to make an appearance. He looks properly awake at least, his hair combed neatly. He disappears into the kitchen before re-emerging again, this time with a mug full of coffee. When he slumps down beside Adam, Adam gets a whiff of toothpaste and the airy soap Thomas uses to wash his face in the morning. He probably packed it in his overnight bag. Adam wonders when he’ll leave. Thomas has missed two days of work. Whatever is plaguing him must be phenomenally bad; he loves working for that stupid fucking outlet and prides himself for never missing a day. Adam has seen pictures of the fucking storefront framed on his living room wall. There were six of them, and one of them hung in the guest bathroom above the toilet.

Still: he doesn’t pry. He’s not under any obligation to help Thomas fix his problems. The same goes for Thomas. He just happens to have extended his stay, for some unbeknownst reason, which Adam doesn’t really mind because he’s hardly home for long periods of time, running around London from one TV audition to another while rehearsing for his Westend debut.

Thomas sniffs the air. “Something smells heavenly. Is that—”

“Lunch,” Adam tells him, then sets his MacBook aside to twirl a forkful of pasta.

Thomas leans forward, and by instinct, Adam starts feeding him several bites, rubbing sauce from the corner of Thomas’ cheek before sucking on his thumb. Between the both of them, they decimate the contents of the bowl under record time. Adam burps and places the now-empty bowl on the coffee table. 

“You okay?” he asks Thomas afterwards, not sure why his hand is shaking or what accounts for the little flip in his stomach when he cups Thomas cheek and Thomas turns his head to nuzzle his palm.

Then Thomas finishes chewing. “I might have gotten a mild headache from sleeping in,” he confesses after a while.

“ _Aw_ ,” Adam says, then laughs.“You want anything for that?”

“I think I’ll just have a drink of water, thank you,”

Adam fetches him a glass from the kitchen, returning to find Thomas horizontal on the sofa, his legs hanging over the armrest. He’s wearing a thin t-shirt which rides up over his ribs and exposes the pale little slope of his belly when he lifts his arms above his head.

He peers curiously up at Adam when he sees him standing there with a glass of water in hand.

“You wanna fuck?” Adam blurts, because really he has zero tact. Sometimes this is a problem; on a good day people say it’s brave.

Thomas stretches languidly, before letting out a deep moan of contentment that goes straight to Adam’s dick. “All right,”he concedes after a moment, still watching Adam with those unreadable eyes. “But do try not to move around too much, my headache is absolutely killing me today.”

“Noted,” Adam says. He takes a gulp of water before kicking off his sweatpants and then crawling on top of Thomas to kiss him within an inch of his life. But the sofa is a tight fit, so he picks Thomas up instead, carrying him to the bedroom which is less of a sty than usual after Thomas has tidied up and righted everything on the shelves, vacuuming the carpet and changing the bedding. The curtains look new.

Adam kneels between Thomas’ spread legs, and watches him peel his shirt off daintily. He has a thin chest, pale peaking nipples, a little mole in the corner of his left rib, hardly visible unless you spent a curious amount of time face to face with his naked upper torso which Adam has been in the last year or so. He’s the most attractive person Adam has ever met and this comes to him without trying. He’s gorgeous first thing in the morning with his chin rough with stubble, and gorgeous still even while livid and threatening Adam with homicide after Adam had casually mentioned how overrated he thought Harrods was.

Adam relishes seeing Thomas undone, stripped of his natural eloquence and unable to quip. It was his goal each time to reduce him to such a state, either by his hand or his mouth, or with the expert use of his cock.

Thomas babbled a lot during sex, a string of pleas and nonsense, half of it incomprehensible. Mostly he begged to be fucked harder and faster and then planted his heels in Adam’s sides as if he were riding a racehorse he was getting to canter.

“I think I know just the thing to cure your headache,” Adam informs him with a completely serious face. He tugs at Thomas’ pyjama bottoms with his other hand, freeing his plumping erection which of course, like the rest of him, is also unfairly elegant, pink and hot in Adam’s palm. It gives a little twitch when Adam runs the pad of his finger over the beading head. The rest of Thomas moves too, unable to hold back a full body shiver.

Thomas’ breath picks up; he rolls his hips up in a full circle. In less than fifteen minutes, Adam will have his legs pinned to his shoulders after sucking out his coherence through his cock. In twenty, he’ll be pounding him into the mattress and having him shouting Adam’s name up at the ceiling, forgetting all about any phantom aches except the one in his asshole as Adam stretches him out leisurely, making sure he feels every filthy inch of his goddamn dick.

“What is it,” Thomas asks, biting his lip, as his pupils fatten with lust though he looks like he already knows the answer. “What do you have in mind.”

Adam presses him down onto the pillows with a smirk.“You’re gonna love it, kid, promise,” he assures Thomas, “So just lie back and think of England, hm? I’ll take care of it.” 

Adam is quick to correct himself there, replacing _you_ to the proper pronoun: it. 

 

* * *

 

 

There was never anything between them. There was a dinner, then a halfhearted coffee while Thomas was on lunch break, and that time they bumped into each other at a Tesco in Kensington and bought the same brand of dishwashing soap, but they weren’t, strictly speaking, dating. 

Adam didn’t call Thomas or text him though Thomas had somehow gotten hold of his personal e-mail and signed him up for the bi-monthly Harrods newsletter which filled Adam’s inbox with news on when there was next going to be a sale.

Whenever they happen to be within the same vicinity, usually when Adam deigned to drop by the store, they proceeded to fuck in the nearest hotel possible, almost like clockwork, and then they went separate ways after ordering room service. 

Which was why Adam was surprised when Thomas had called him one day to invite him over for a home cooked dinner to show off the aquarium he had installed earlier in the week in hopes to calm his random bouts of rage. 

Adam was a terrible cook when it came down to it and lived primarily on takeout or concocted his own meals from whatever was within reach so he wasn’t going to say no to the promise of a free relatively well prepared five course meal. He showed up a few minutes ahead of schedule, wearing a clean enough shirt and his favourite jeans. He took the tube to the station nearest Thomas’ flat, walking the rest of the way and stopping by a store for their fanciest bottle of white wine to go with the fish Thomas was supposed to be frying up, a rather apt main course considering he’d just gotten himself a school of Siamese fighting fish. 

Adam wasn’t going to drink the wine, he wasn’t stupid, but he didn’t know what else to bring and he wasn’t going to show up with flowers.

Adam took the elevator to the twelfth floor, drumming his fingers on his thigh, a habit borne of restlessness. Thomas’ flat was probably huge and sprawling in comparison to his, with enormous floor to ceiling windows that flooded with natural light during the day and looked out to spectacular views of the city. He probably sipped red wine during his free time while listening to Pergolesi arias on vinyl. He probably wore a suit even while at home.

When Thomas answered the door on the Adam’s fourth buzz, Adam realized how wrong most of his assumptions had been. Most, not _all_ , because Thomas was still smartly dressed in a long sleeved cotton shirt and a pair of appropriately tight jeans, and there was operatic music playing softly in the background. On the counter behind him was was a clear glass flute, the inside faint with red dregs. 

Thomas had an apron over his clothes; the hand he used to open the door was stuffed in an oven mitt. He looked like Adam had caught him in the middle of making dinner. 

“Did you get lost on the way?” he said by way of greeting. “I was expecting you a little earlier.”

“You said seven thirty,” Adam reminded him, then glanced around the place: smaller than he expected with monochromatic furnishings though a stuffed orange armchair sat in a corner like an eyesore. Somehow, it seemed more fitting, especially paired with the framed photographs of Harrods crowding the left wall of the living area. Nothing Adam wasn’t already expecting.

Thomas sniffed as he eyed the bottle of wine Adam had tucked under one arm. Adam thought it was the polite thing to do, to show up with some sort of dinner gift, but apparently Thomas had opinions on what constituted good wine. Because, of course he did.

“You can leave that on the table,” he said flippantly as Adam shut the door behind him and moved over to the coat stand to hang up his jacket. “Do you mind helping me with dessert? I’m making lemon panna cotta with pine nut brittle. Usually they’re made with blackberries but I’m allergic so I tried a different recipe.”

None of that made any sense but sounded delicious anyway so Adam shrugged, following Thomas dutifully into the kitchen. 

“Nice fish,” he commented, as they passed Thomas’ well-lit aquarium. It looked expensive. He tapped on the glass and the fish swam away from him. 

“Thank you,” Thomas said, blushing as he stood next to Adam and waved his fingers at the fish. “They’re rather soothing to look at aren’t they?”

“Sure,” Adam said, and withheld his joke about what else he thought was soothing to look at as he unabashedly raked his gaze over Thomas. 

 

* * *

 

 

When Adam picks up the phone, he’s expecting a call from his agent, news of a gig, maybe his sister, and not Thomas asking him what time he’d be home and what he’d like for dinner. He checks his screen a few times: the call is coming from his landline. He’s out with his friends at a restaurant which is a hop, skip, jump from the Old Vic where his play is going to open in two months’ time. 

It’s been six days and Thomas still hasn’t left his apartment. At least, Adam reasons, the living room is now spartan, everything tucked in their proper places, including Adam’s books which had been catalogued to an obsessive degree using a system only Thomas knew. Adam now has a clear view of the kitchen space. All his laundry had been folded away, his garbage disposed of.

“Thomas?” Adam says into the phone, excusing himself from the table. There’s music playing in the background. Adam can almost make out strings of Monteverdi. 

“Oh thank god you picked up,” Thomas says, sounding relieved. “I honestly thought you’d died. Anyway, I went to the shops today and picked out a few things. Red meat or fish?”

“What do you mean? For what?”

“For dinner,” Thomas says, as if Adam was somehow the daft one.

“Red meat,” Adam says automatically. He won’t apologize for his proclivities, the same way he won’t lie about being single-mindedly attracted to only a certain type of guy which Thomas happens to fit almost perfectly to a tee: slim and soft, little to no muscle, with a mean streak a mile wide and BBC-perfect diction. Also an insatiable need to be held down and fucked brought about by years and years of boarding school repression though Adam isn’t often very strict on his bed partners’ educational pedigree or lack thereof.

“Can you bake me a cake?” Adam asks, purely to tease Thomas and to see what he’ll do.

But Thomas sounds as if he’s actually pondering this and makes a thoughtful noise.“Hm, I haven’t the time, so maybe tomorrow if you’re still in the mood for it. But I make an excellent rhubarb pie that should be ready by seven. You’ll be home by then, won’t you? At seven?”

Won’t he?

Adam glances at his watch. That’s in five hours. Which is a little too early for a curfew but still: rhubarb pie. He’s had Thomas’ cooking before. He knows what Thomas is capable of.

“Yes,” he says, without thinking too hard on it. “I’ll see you at seven,” he adds.

“And bring home some red wine. You know the kind I like,” Thomas tells him, before hanging up.

Funnily enough, Adam does and stands in line at a Tesco for a whole fifteen minutes for an exorbitantly priced bottle of _Amarone Della Valpolicella_ which he tucks into his coat and brings with him to afternoon rehearsals, then to the gym, and then finally home, a skip in his step.

Thomas’ rhubarb pie is amazing but the blowjob that follows dessert is phenomenal, also worthy of praise.

 

* * *

 

 

Back in New York, Adam had a number of failed relationships. 

His problem was that he fell in love with the wrong people, often too soon or for all the wrong reasons. He romanticized these romantic failings in the form of a television show which he co-wrote with his then girlfriend, a friend of his ex, but even that didn’t work out and he legged it soon after to the other side of the pond where the grass was greener and he landed more acting gigs because his face raked in more European pounds than American dollars. The English loved him, and appreciated his frankness, the weird way his face was put together. He got compliments on his nose. He was on two episodes of Wallander.

Thomas just thought he was an idiot. “You’re a bloody idiot,” he said, staring at Adam as soon as he appeared in the doorway in nothing but sweats and the same t-shirt he wore to the gym this morning. He also smelled a little; he ran and took the tube to Thomas’ flat as soon as he got his text message which was peppered with a series of emoji Adam had interpreted as panic.

“You said it was an emergency,” Adam said flatly, looking around the room. Nothing was on fire, and Thomas only smelled faintly of alcohol.

“It was,” Thomas affirmed. “It is. My kitchen sink is clogged. I think something got stuck in the pipes. I need someone to take a look at it but the landlord wouldn’t pick up my calls.”

“And you texted me because…” Adam trailed off expectantly.

“I was merely stating a fact: there’s an emergency in my kitchen. I didn’t bloody well expect you to show up!”

“Do I look like a plumber to you?” Adam asked. 

Thomas threw the question back at him except he punctuated it with a raised eyebrow and crossed arms. “Do I?”

Adam sighed and shook his head, letting himself in and throwing his gym bag in the corner. Arguing was going to get him nowhere; he might as well get it over and done with since he’s here anyway. 

“Why the hell are you dressed like someone’s mistress from _Days of Our Lives_ anyway?” he asked as he got settled in the kitchen, kneeling in front of the sink which put him on eye-level with Thomas’ pale knee which peeked out of the little slip of his blue silk robe. He looked, frankly, ridiculous. But also like something out of a porno: completely naked underneath the robe with his hair all neat and full of pomade. _Fuckable_. 

Adam had to stop himself from staring. Again and again. He was blushing, but chalked up the heat from his face from having run part of the way.

“I don’t understand that reference,” Thomas said, blinking. “You’ll have to explain it to me.”

“Never mind,” Adam said. He tugged the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows and peered under the sink with a flash light before turning back to Thomas who was hovering over him, breathing heavily and looking expectant.

“Well?” Thomas said, concerned. “What’s the verdict?”

“I think we’ll need to employ the help of our good friend Google for this,” Adam said.

 

* * *

 

 

Contrary to popular belief, Adam isn’t a complete pig. 

He likes to fuck sloppy, sure, and sometimes comes all over Thomas’ back and presses his ejaculate into the puffy hole of Thomas’ ass, but this sloppiness doesn’t extend to his cleaning habits and he’s perfectly capable of tidying up his messes. He just forgets now and again to do the laundry and the dishes, to take out the trash and change his bed sheets. To wipe down the blinds.

Moving to another country can take its toll especially if one is establishing credentials and building connections from complete scratch. Adam is tired all the time and grumpy and prefers weekends in as opposed to partying now that he’s a little older, spending Saturdays to Sundays watching old movies from the comfort of his bed while he slept on and off. He hates movement of any kind, unless it’s movement that brought him pleasure like eating, or jerking off. 

And sometimes due to his own indolence, his laundry piled up.

Gradually however, Adam’s laundry problem resolves itself after Thomas makes his apartment a respectable place of residence one again: gone are the plates crowding the sink, the mugs of half-drunk coffee left here and there all over every available surface. Adam can finally see his carpet again. His socks have been balled into pairs in his sock drawer. Every day he has a clean shirt. He knows where everything is including his underwear and his toothbrush.

It’s also Thomas’ second week in his apartment.

Adam waits, delays, and upon nearing the third week, accepts the fact that Thomas has insinuated himself into his routine. They watch Gregory Peck movies in bed on his laptop and eat leftover pizza from the previous night, fucking in between movies before moving onto _National Treasure_ and its sequel, which Adam loves without irony. 

Thomas picks pineapple off the pizza and feeds them to Adam piece by piece. Adam sucks Thomas’ fingers into his mouth, then explains the plot of both movies, voice rising in volume as his excitement escalates. He lets Thomas fall asleep with his head pillowed in his lap. Thomas grinds his teeth, dreaming fitfully. No amount of petting seems to helpbut Adam trails his hand through Thomas’ hair anyway as he repeats all of Nicolas Cage’s lines in a deep voice at 3:15 in the morning. 

Afterwards, he sleeps too.

 

* * *

 

 

Adam didn’t know Thomas long enough to have a fight with him. No, that wasn’t true at all: they’ve known each other well over a year and just never fought. Argued, yes, several times in a row, sometimes in full view of bystanders over some trivial thing, but never anything that resulted in verbal fisticuffs. They disagreed over things that barely mattered: who was the best Beatle, whether yodeling should be classified as a genre of music or a sport, which version of _The Office_ was better, the original or the remake. Why Adam thought dating was a waste of time when people were going to leave in the end anyway and how it was better to have some sort of sexual arrangement with someone like what they currently had now.

Apparently, that had been the wrong thing to say because Thomas’ mouth went flat. He was very easy to read sometimes and Adam wondered if Thomas knew that about himself. Wearing your heart on your sleeve could be dangerous. 

“Relationships are like fruit,” Adam was saying as they finished up the last dregs of their overpriced coffee and cake. “You only want them while they’re still fresh. They spoil, they rot, given enough time. Then you discard them when you can no longer stomach them and look for other fruit. Ad infinitum.”

“You’re a pessimist,” Thomas noted.

“A realist,” Adam corrected him. “I hate being inundated with this whole romance bullshit. Relationships aren’t real.”

“I think it depends on the people,” Thomas pointed out, his tone getting progressively irritated.

“Well, then, I don’t think I’m one of those people,” Adam decided and ate his final bite of cake. He blinked when Thomas stood from his seat with a scrape of his chair.

“I’m leaving,” Thomas announced, tossing his napkin onto the table after primly patting his lips clean. “Thank you for paying for brunch.”

“Sorry?” Adam said, but he was already talking to thin air. He followed Thomas out of _Richoux_ , scrambling to keep up with him. Thomas was on the sidewalk shrugging back into his coat, the burgundy one which happened to be Adam’s favourite on account of how perfectly it seemed to fit Thomas and didn’t wash him out. 

Adam helped him into his coat and then spun him around slowly, touching him on both elbows as they stood face to face. “Hey,” he said, “Where you going? We were having such a nice time.” 

Thomas’ expression didn’t falter as he broke free from Adam’s grip. His look could curdle milk but it also made Adam feel like he’d been punched in the gut; he didn’t know why he suddenly felt like an asshole. He’d done nothing wrong to warrant Thomas’ wrath. 

Except.

“I have to go home now. I forgot to feed my fish,” Thomas told him.

“Your fish,” Adam repeated, clipping his words. “You need to feed your fish.” 

It was complete bullshit. 

Adam knew it, Thomas knew it, but Adam let it slide anyway. If Thomas wanted to act like a kid, then let him. Brunch was done anyway; they had no business being in each other’s company. 

“Fine, then,” Adam said, and stepped away from Thomas. “Go.” He meant to sound angry, but only succeeded in sounding lost and confused. 

After holding his gaze for a beat too long, Thomas turned on his heel and left, disappearing into a sea of commuters.

Adam stood there on the sidewalk, wondering what had just happened. 

Neither of them called each other for a month.

 

Adam made amends several weeks later but by that time he’d done so, he’d forgotten why he was angry at Thomas in the first place. All he remembered was how Thomas had looked before they parted, his face cold and hurt, his fist clenched. How Adam thought he still looked beautiful even while he was angry, and he never gave compliments lightly because he wasn’t one to exaggerate. He really did think Thomas was beautiful. But he’d fucked up royally, and now here they were.

Here they were indeed.

Adam was at a New Year’s Party, at a friend’s house, where he was bored out of his mind. He couldn’t drink and someone he’d been flirting with all night was luring him into the spare bedroom for a little something or other, but it didn’t feel right, sitting there in his friend’s living room with a soggy paper plate in his lap and a festive hat, to accept the invitation. 

The flirting had been forced, half-hearted, something he had tried only to test whether he could do it still, after so long. Then he caught himself thinking of Thomas, the way he thought of Thomas now and again since the last time they’d seen each other. Wondered what he was doing, what he was up to, what he was wearing as of this moment, if he was at a party and planned to kiss someone else at midnight, as per tradition, which Adam still maintained was incredibly dumb. People should just kiss whenever they wanted to kiss, regardless of time. And New Year’s Eve was overrated anyway; it was just another night like all nights in the calendar.

Adam left. Inexplicably, he found himself taking the tube to Thomas’ flat. It didn’t hit him that he should’ve called ahead to check whether Thomas was home but it was too late now, he was standing right in front of Thomas’ door. He rang the doorbell six times in a row. He felt crazy. He probably was at this point. But he’d done crazier things before because he was a slave to his impulses.

Thomas answered the door before there could be a seventh buzz, throwing it open with a muttered complaint. He was scowling, wearing pyjamas and a comfortable robe. And he looked good. Tired, his hair in disarray, his nose running and his eyes watery, clutching a box of Kleenex to his chest, but still. _Good_. 

“What on earth are you doing here?” Thomas said, tightening the ties of his robes. Then he sneezed. Twice. 

“Are you busy?” Adam asked, watching him sniff and blow noisily into a wad of Kleenex. “I was going to ask you to dinner.”

Thomas stared at him before tilting his head. He probably thought Adam was crazy, showing up like this without calling first, two hours before midnight, after having walked out of a party. Adam smelled like secondhand cigarettes and stale sweat. He felt a little clammy under his leather jacket. Really, he wouldn’t blame Thomas if he drove him out. He’d drive himself out too.

“I have no plans of leaving my flat today,” Thomas informed him. “You do realize what traffic is like during this time of the year. It’s dreadful. And there will be all these people everywhere. Restaurants will be full as will be pubs.”

“Well,” Adam opined. “We could always stay in.”

Thomas actually huffed, looking Adam up and down as if he were assessing his mental capacity. “What makes you think I’m going to invite you in, then? You show up like this without preamble, after a month of radio silence.” He shook his head. “Don’t push your luck, Mr Sackler.”

Adam started to smile in spite of himself. 

It was nice, hearing the usual bite in Thomas’ voice, almost soothing. Thomas didn’t smile back but he rolled his eyes and widened the opening of the door the longer Adam stood there saying nothing and just smiling.

“You’re a prick,” Thomas stated, apropos of nothing. He was blushing; it was cute. “I hope you know that. I don’t know why I put up with it.”

“Yeah, well, I missed you too Thomas McGregor,” Adam said, his tone light and teasing. But he was telling the truth, and rather than retract his statement he looked Thomas straight in the eye without blinking. He missed him, true, but miss wouldn’t be entirely accurate for what he felt in those last few weeks. People miss red meat all the time, their pets, their bad habits; he’ll need a stronger word. “Sorry I was an ass last time.”

“You’re an arse all the time.”

“Fair enough, fair enough.”

Thomas rolled his eyes again.

“So are you going to let me in or not?” Adam asked, because he didn’t intend to stand there all day on Thomas’ doorstep on fucking New Year’s Eve.

Thomas paused before sighing, as if the whole situation aggrieved him. “Do you know you’ve still got a party hat on?” he said, lifting an eyebrow. “You look ridiculous. Take that bloody thing off. It’s distracting.” 

Adam grinned, and stepped forward, tugging it off and then running a hand through his hair. 

 

* * *

 

All things end. Too soon or too late, sometimes rather quietly. 

The peace ends because Adam can’t keep his mouth shut, lying on his back in the dark as Thomas straddles his lap and kisses him, the two of them moving languidly under the covers, perfectly in sync.

It’s late that it’s almost morning again. Light from outside the window is touching the sharp planes of Thomas’ back, slicing patterns across his skin. Adam feels like he’s dreaming, except there’s a tremendous pressure on his cock that he can’t chalk up to anything else but Thomas riding him enthusiastically. He looks good like this, his face empty of anything but pure bliss. 

Earlier Adam had him spread out on his back with his legs hitched up to his shoulders and he’d made the same face while Adam licked at his cock and hole. He’d made a soft noise then, the same one he’s making now, low and crooning as his entire body shook. 

His waist is thin under Adam’s hands, almost delicate. Adam sweeps a thumb over the divot in his left hip and Thomas shudders again, his cock pushing out precome onto Adam’s chest. 

“I think,” Adam says when they break away from kissing, open-mouthed and breathing against each other’s lips. He presses their foreheads together; sweat mats their skin. It’s unfair how good Thomas smells, even with the scent of sex lacing his hair, or after going two whole days without a shower. It’s unfair how he can just barrel into Adam’s apartment and not leave and Adam can’t even muster up the balls to turn him away mostly because he doesn’t want to.

“I think I might be in love with you,” Adam says. He laughs a little at himself, feeling delirious. But Thomas doesn’t respond, doesn’t move. Then he starts to jerk into motion again, impaling himself roughly on Adam’s cock, letting out a deep breathy moan as he plucks at his own chest, pinching his nipples.

“Thomas?” Adam groans, patting him on the ass. “Thomas.”

Thomas sighs, stopping abruptly, bracing himself above Adam, his hands planted on either side of Adam’s head. It takes Adam a few moments to process the obvious: that Thomas is choosing to ignore the confession instead of acknowledging it, that there’s a line and Adam has just crossed it. This won’t be the first time he’s ruined a good thing before it had the chance to blossom so he braces himself for whatever Thomas lobbies his way.

“I heard what you said,” Thomas says, then rolls his hips again feebly, before groaning and sliding off Adam’s dick when his erection begins to flag. When he rolls onto his side of the bed, the sheets roll along with him, twisting up his legs and leaving Adam exposed to the night air.

“Do you still want to finish—” Adam jokes, dick only half-hard now and slick with smears of lube. He sits up halfway but stops when he sees the expression in Thomas’ face. His eyes look wet even in the dark, shining with something akin to tears though Adam has only seen him cry once when they watched a movie together where the dog died in the end.

“I was fired from my job,” Thomas says, rubbing at his elbows. He’s staring into space, with a lost faraway look that Adam hasn’t seen in a while, pointedly not meeting Adam’s gaze. 

“I lost a promotion to the most ineligible prick in my department purely out of nepotism. I went a little mental afterwards. Blacked out a bit and then when I came to, apparently I’d decimated thousands of pounds worth of company property.” 

Thomas rubs at his eye sockets, and then huffs, a wet miserable sound that knifes straight into Adam’s ribs in a clean, deft stroke. 

“I worked ten years for that promotion,” Thomas sighs. “Now I have nothing. Not even a job. Funny how life works, doesn’t it. How you can lose everything in just a flash.”

Adam stares at him. He touches his arm. He wants to kiss him, to assure Thomas that everything will be fine, but he doesn’t know that and he doesn’t want to lie. 

“I didn’t know,” he says instead and squeezes Thomas’ arm in one, two pulses. This is, at least, the truth.

Thomas actually looks at him then, shrugging. “I’m sorry I haven’t left yet.”

“You don’t have to leave,” Adam tells him.

Thomas laughs though nothing is overtly funny. “Thank you for being a kind host, Adam,” He never calls Adam by his name. “I’ll leave first thing in the morning; I know I haven’t been the most conscientious guest in the last few weeks but thank you for not kicking me out prematurely.” 

Thomas pats him on the hand, as if he’s the one that needs consoling, then he shifts onto his side facing the wall and gives Adam his back. That usually means the conversation is over, that he’s preparing to sleep, but the two of them lie awake for a long time afterward.

 

* * *

 

The first time they’d kissed had been in the dark of a movie theater. A little cliché for Adam’s tastes, but it happened on a day just like any other. He’d asked Thomas to accompany him to see his latest movie, three months after it premiered. He’d never actually watched it in full, as he went on constant bathroom breaks during the screening he attended, riddled with anxiety and self-consciousness. He hated watching himself act. Like every actor alive, he was his own worst critic. 

Thomas accepted the invitation. Neither of them had anything to do on a Friday night. They’d met at the cinema after Thomas finished his shift, the one on Notting Hill Gate famous for being over a hundred years old and for its beautifully plush seating. 

There was a bar with an extensive wine list. Most of the cinema staff were friendly; none of them recognized Adam who came in with his hood pulled up around his ears. 

Thomas told him he looked like a madman. Adam simply curtsied. They bought their tickets without incident, Thomas clutching an enormous bag of salted popcorn which he began to eat even before the title credits rolled.

A hush fell over them when the lights started to dim. Thomas looked at Adam, and then away, and the movie started playing. Barely halfway into it, Thomas was already nodding off, his head drooping onto Adam’s shoulder in twitchy jerks. Adam moved his shoulder, tried shrugging him off, but Thomas only sniffed tiredly before blinking around like a bird. He looked sweet, Adam thought then, with his bleary gaze and a lock of dark hair slanting over one eye. He’d only known Thomas for six months, had been fucking him for less than, and yet, Adam realized, he’d never even kissed him on the mouth.

He decided to try it, push his luck, but when he leaned forward, he caught Thomas at a bad angle just as he was stretching his back and yawning. Their lips mashed together awkwardly, and Adam ended up with a mouthful of chin. Then Thomas lowered his face, and blinked at him. A beat passed and he started to snort, then giggle uncontrollably. 

Adam giggled too and then pressed a chaste kiss to the corner of Thomas’ lips which tasted faintly of popcorn. It felt good, nice, unlike any kiss he’d given before which were all under the influence of alcohol. This one left him clear-headed and awake. He turned his attention back to the movie, thumbing absently at his lips.

A kiss was still a kiss. 

A number of them followed after: as they stood on a nearly-empty station platform, waiting for the train. Then later on the sidewalk, traffic lights hanging overhead blinking yellow and red to a mostly deserted street. And then in Adam’s apartment, after some takeaway, when Thomas offered to do the dishes and was standing in front of the kitchen sink, pulling on a pair of green rubber gloves and snapping back the ends against each wrist with a loud _thwap._ He looked surprised to see Adam standing behind him, watching him with what was probably an unreadable look, but even more surprised when Adam started backing him up against the sink. 

Adam kissed him, once, twice, the third time on the peak of Thomas’ sigh, cupping his face.

The sink overflowed with water. 

Adam reached behind Thomas and turned the tap off. 

Then he kissed him again.

 

* * *

 

 

 

This is the afterward:

Adam stands in his apartment, walking from room to room. Empty, empty, empty, though it isn’t as if he’s expecting them not to be. 

The bed is just as Thomas has left it this morning, his side dented where he’d slept, smelling just like him. Adam folds up his sheets and shuts the closet door which is hanging ajar for some reason. Thomas didn’t take anything from the apartment; he’d brought everything he needed in that duffel bag of his, including toiletries and a change of clothes, his own razor. He’d stayed for almost a month, and Adam barely even noticed it.

What he noticed, though, was this: the sudden open space thereafter as if his apartment was somehow vast and infinite. The mug Thomas had used this morning for his coffee was still damp from when he’d rinsed it, leaving a ring of water on the sink. 

Adam leaves for rehearsals, and when he comes back to a quiet living room, sits on the sofa alone and puts his feet up on the coffee table. It should be freeing, Thomas would often berate him for doing it, batting his ankles, but instead it makes him feel — _guilty_. He goes to make dinner in the kitchen, finds a tupperware of leftover rhubarb pie sitting in the fridge instead.

Adam eats the pie in bed, watching old movies in the dark. Humphrey Bogart, Paul Newman, James Cagney, the classics, all his favourites, the ones he watched as a kid that made him want to become an actor for a living. He laughs at himself once he realizes what he’s doing. Then he goes to sleep by midday. 

 

* * *

 

 

“This place is a sty,” Thomas said, the first time he ever graced Adam’s apartment. “And you’re a Philistine.”

Thomas stepped inside and tiptoed over the clutter of magazines and books on the floor, the week-old laundry in mountainous heaps. “I don’t know why I agreed to this. I think I might want to go home.”

“The bed is clean,” Adam suggested, shutting the door behind them with a kick. He agreed it wasn’t The Hyatt but the floorspace was nearly identical to Thomas’, only much less visible on account of all the crap lying around: an Xbox console, some blank CD cases, half of his DVD collection spilling out from the shelves.

“I could only _hope_ the bed is clean,” Thomas snorted, “As there’s no bloody way I’m having sex with you on dirty bedding.”

Adam burst out laughing. He laughed a lot around Thomas which was actually pretty freeing. It wasn’t the things he said but more how he said them: with a completely blank face and his tone matter-of-fact. He wore his emotions on his face, plain as day. He didn’t mean to be rude most of the time, Adam knew, but sometimes he couldn’t help himself, and remnants of his upperclass upbringing showed.

“It’s gonna be fine,” Adam assured him, steering him towards the direction of the bedroom, which was as promised, actually cleaner than the rest of the apartment, practically a sanctuary with only some minimal clutter. He massaged Thomas’ shoulders as he eased his coat off of them and then sat him down on the bed, kneeling in front of him to take off his shoes and line them up in a corner. 

Thomas was still frowning.

“Baby,” Adam sighed. “I promise once I get my mouth on your dick, the last thing you’ll be thinking about would be when my sheets were last laundered.”

“At least you launder them,” Thomas conceded after a moment, leaning back on his palms as Adam started to need the arch of his right foot. He let out a moan and then collapsed on his back, stretching his arms above his head so that his shirt wrinkled a bit at the movement. 

Then he peered down at Adam. “You’re good with your hands,” he observed, wiggling his toes in Adam’s grip. “It’s hard, you know, being on your feet all day.”

Adam snorted. “You need better shoes, then. Stop wearing the — how do you say it — ‘ _poncy_ ’ ones or whatever. You’re killing your feet.”

Thomas rolled his eyes, and shoved at Adam’s chest with a sock-covered toe. Then he proceeded to unbuckle his belt and shimmy out of his pants and underwear, leaving them in a puddle around his ankles. 

Adam grinned. He loved it, all of it: Thomas’ smooth thighs pale and unblemished and his heavy pink cock canting upwards to the left. He still had his tie on, his shirt and waistcoat, but Adam didn’t mind because he liked fucking Thomas even when he was still half-clothed, usually when they were both too eager to get started and couldn’t wait till they were naked.

“You’re like my every wet dream come to life since I was a teenager,” Adam told him, sliding on top of Thomas to kiss him full on the lips because he couldn’t help it. Their mouths connected with an eager clink of teeth, rough swipes of the tongue, and Adam groaned when he felt Thomas’ seeking tongue probe at his parted lips. 

“Hmm,” Thomas hummed, when they’d pulled away long enough to breathe. “So you’ve always dreamt of fucking someone working in retail, is that it?”

“Of course,” Adam laughed. He leaned back, though he was trapped in place by the cage of Thomas’ legs wrapped tight around his hips. “Lookat you though, with your tie and your fucking waistcoat, your matching green socks.”

“Hunter green,” Thomas corrected him.

Adam gave him a disbelieving look. 

“The company provided them, anyhow,” Thomas continued, clearly amused. “They’re practically a uniform.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Adam shrugged. “But I can’t deny looking at you in _uniform_ does things to me.”

“Things,” Thomas repeated, with a gleam in his eye, eyebrows lifting. “Do expound on what you mean by _things_.”

“Oh, it gets my dick hard, maybe,” Adam said, before licking his palm and reaching between them to stroke idly at Thomas’ cock. Thomas gave a little judder, closing his eyes and biting his lip, a flush searing its way across his cheeks where there were very faint echoes of freckles. 

“Wanted to fuck you, first time I saw you wearing that waistcoat and tie,” Adam whispered into Thomas’ ear, holding him in a firmer grip. 

Thomas squirmed, starting to pant then shake his head. “That night,” he whimpered when Adam did something with his wrist. “At the pub?” 

Adam had wanted to do a number of things to him the first time they met, but most of all he wanted to make Thomas laugh and then kiss him. The order wasn’t really important. And he still remembered how Thomas looked that night: standing in line for the bathroom, playing a stupid game on his phone which he didn’t even put on mute so that every time he scored, an audible ping resonated. 

Thomas had come alone, with no friends. Adam had been watching him from across the room the entire night, being accosted constantly by men, some women, and he turned them away each time.

“I wanted you,” Adam said. “Even then.” 

This was pathetic as it was true. Adam never meant for things to progress to… _this_ , as he’d only really intended to ask for Thomas’ number that night, but here they were now and he regretted none of it. He wondered when this became the easy part. 

Thomas looked at him for a long time, didn’t blink. His eyes often changed color, depending on the light. “Have me then,” he said, finally, stilling Adam’s hand, aborting the movement of his fingers. He rolled onto his stomach, arched his back, pointing his ass at Adam which Adam had fucked and licked and sucked and bitten a number of times before but still found so irresistible. 

He suspected he had a brain parasite.

“Fuck me this way,” Thomas said, leaning down on his forearms as he glanced at Adam over his shoulder. “I want to come on your cock while you fuck me.”

Adam didn’t waste time, didn’t need to be told twice. He prepped Thomas with two fingers, then had him whining at three, humping back on Adam’s hand and wiggling his ass. He was insatiable, so Adam smacked him soundly on the ass before lining up his cock and pushing in in increments, gripping Thomas by the hip so he could sink him down onto his dick. 

They stopped using condoms months ago, after they promised each other they were clean, that neither of them was sleeping around, that it was actually safe. 

And it felt better this way, filthier, Adam fucking Thomas until he babbled and lay there on his stomach with nothing to do but moan and wrinkle Adam’s sheets up in his fists. He didn’t touch himself, though he did rub his cock onto the bedding every now and then, dampening the cotton with drips of pre-come.

Adam fucked him with everything he had, then rolled Thomas over so he could fuck him on his back, clutching Thomas’ sock-covered ankles in his hands as he ground his dick into him in slow savage thrusts. He looked beautiful, taking Adam’s dick like a natural, his face flushed and sweaty, his mouth opening and closing soundly as he gasped and pleaded, hunter-green tie snaking over his shoulder.

Adam pulled out and came all over Thomas’ waistcoat then collapsed on top of him a blurry time later, chest heaving. Sweat pasted his naked skin to Thomas’ clothed chest and Thomas held him as he came down from his orgasm, breathing heavily into Adam’s ear and stroking his shaking back. 

Thomas hadn’t come yet, but it was easy to make him after Adam had already fucked him hard and well. He slithered down to Thomas’ lap, and started choking down his dick, playing the fingers of his right hand into Thomas’ puffy hole until his whole body started to vibrate. 

Thomas smacked Adam on the shoulder as he came, and then he was whimpering as Adam continued to suck on his softening dick, pulling off with a noisy pop and lick of the lips when Thomas was completely emptied out, his dick and hole twitching. His thighs fell open weakly, lolling in opposite directions and he was completely unselfconscious about showing Adam his thoroughly debauched hole, still slick with lube. 

Thomas threw an arm over his eyes, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you got ejaculate all over my waistcoat,” he said with a baleful sniff. “ _Ugh_.”

Adam slapped him on the ass and then started to laugh.

 

* * *

 

Adam has a spare key to Thomas’ flat in case of an emergency. 

This counts as an emergency. 

At least that’s what Adam tells himself so he feels less like a creep about to _technically_ break into Thomas’ flat. Thomas hasn’t contacted him in the last few days. He’d called, texted, left him a voice message. He didn’t want to seem excessive so at some point he stopped, left things open so Thomas could return the volley whenever he felt like it. This was just like before, when they would get together at random intervals when the itch became too strong. They waited, and waited, and sometimes the waiting bore fruit.

Adam hadn’t cared then but he — he cares now. 

Thomas said he was going to be in the country for a while. Something about an inheritance, property he’d inherited. He didn’t elaborate and Adam didn’t pry. He’d been stupid not to, didn’t even ask for an address. It’s been five days, and still: nothing.

Of course this counts as an emergency.

Thomas isn’t home.

Adam has expected that and lets himself into Thomas’ flat, strides over the pile of mail slid under the door before crouching down to rifle through envelopes of varying sizes: bills, bills, more bills, some junk mail. He tosses them onto the coffee table, turns the light on in the kitchen, spies Thomas’ sink which is spotless like everything else in the flat, and free of dishes. 

And then he walks back to the living room to check up on Thomas’ aquarium. It’s been emptied out and cleaned. Adam hasn’t come over in a long time and Thomas has never mentioned his fish dying. But it looks like the aquarium hasn’t been in use for some time, dust lining the inside. Months maybe. 

“Huh,” Adam says, and taps a fingernail against the glass. It makes a hollow sound. 

Adam goes to the bedroom, sits on the bed, the same bed they’d fucked in dozens of times before, and which Thomas had once thrown up in after having one pint too many at a company Christmas party, after which he vowed never to drink again. He’d bought the bed with his first paycheck at Harrods, using his employee discount to get 20% off. He vouched for its quality and all this Thomas had told Adam this while sucking on his dick, knelt on the floor while Adam sat on the bed and stroked Thomas’ hair, as if Adam had been worried about whether the structural integrity of the bed could withstand their rough fucking later. 

It was a surprisingly sturdy bed, though, truth be told, unfussy and utilitarian, a queen with a walnut headboard. The mattress was sturdy, and didn’t squeak even after Adam had hauled Thomas onto all fours and put his back into pounding him hard and fast. It was also surprisingly comfortable to sleep in, the times Adam actually deigned to stay.

It feels strange, now, to be in Thomas’ flat without him, the space magnified by his absence. The sheets are freshly changed, all the cabinets and closet doors are shut, his books tucked away. On the nightstand Thomas has left his mouthguard sitting in a clear plastic container next to a tube of ointment for his back pain. 

Otherwise everything is immaculate, pristine. The curtains, even the pillows crowding the sofa. Silent, still. 

Adam shuts the lights off in the bedroom, the kitchen, then he leaves. 

 

* * *

 

The first time Adam had Thomas over, he woke the next morning to the noise of a vacuum cleaner in the living room. Adam didn’t even know he owned a vacuum cleaner. He thought he was dreaming: he wasn’t. He walked to the living room to check up on the situation, not completely surprised to find Thomas involved in some capacity. 

Thomas was vacuuming at seven thirty in the morning. On a Saturday. When he should’ve still been in bed with Adam so Adam could simply roll them over and give him a morning blowjob.

He was also wearing Adam’s tank top, along with a pair of navy blue boxers that seemed to be his own, and then not much else, plusa pair of bedroom slippers whose origins were completely unknown to Adam because he’d never seen them before. 

His arms looked reedy through the loose armholes of Adam’s tank top, he barely had any armpit hair, and he had a little bruise purpling his left elbow. Half of Adam’s junk had been moved to one side of the living room so he could clean. There was a patch of sweat matting the cotton of his shirt to Thomas’ back. 

“Are you vacuuming?” Adam said, more to himself and the room at large.

His voice must have carried because Thomas turned, unplugging an earbud as he glanced at him. “What?” he said, standing to his full height; he’d been hunched over the coffee table. “What? Sorry I—” He turned the vacuum off. “You were saying something?”

“Nothing,” said Adam. He scratched at his stomach and popped a crick in his neck, then padded into the kitchen to put the percolator on which he managed to wrangle from behind the microwave. It looked like Thomas tidied up a bit in the kitchen as well: all the handles of Adam’s mugs now faced outward and the dishes had magically disappeared from the sink and been washed. 

A minute later, Adam poked his head back into the living room, coffee filter in hand. 

“You want some coffee?” he asked Thomas who had already resumed his vacuuming though now was facing Adam’s direction at least, bobbing his head to whatever was blasting through his earbuds. 

Thomas blinked so Adam repeated the question, this time at a much louder volume and gesturing slowly with his hands. “Do you want some coffee?” he said, enunciating every word.

“Oh, black please,” Thomas said, blushing in embarrassment before smiling brilliantly. He held up a finger. “And no sugar would be lovely. Please. Thank you.” Then he pinched his earbud back in.

Adam watched him for a while, vacuuming every square inch of carpet, and then shook his head. He wasn’t going to ask Thomas to stay for lunch but that was what he ended up doing anyway. 

Thomas cooked for him, they fucked in the shower, and didn’t leave the bed again until Adam had to answer the door to pay for the takeout curry they were having for dinner.  

  

* * *

 

On Tuesday, there’s someone home. 

Adam almost doesn’t realize this until he walks in on Thomas cooking in the kitchen, his back turned to him, an apron over his clothes. Something smells good, whatever is cooking for lunch. It makes Adam’s mouth water. But he’s more concerned about the fact Thomas is back again, and home, that he’s not an apparition or a figment of Adam’s dreams that he has willed into existence after days of pining and that he is, in actual fact, standing in his own kitchen making lunch unperturbed. 

It’s a little over dramatic the relief that crashes straight through him like a freight train, but Adam always has been dramatic, feeling things too deeply in sweeping impulses and waves that come and go. This feeling though, it’s different: a real, fragile thing.

“Thomas,” Adam says, hovering by the door. 

Thomas glances in Adam’s direction, startled. He looks like he got a tan, which in Thomas parlance means his skin has burnt red in patches all over his face. Still: he looks good. Adam’s missed him. Music is playing in the background, not a concerto or an aria, but good old Bob Dylan. 

“You’re in my kitchen,” Thomas observes, blinking. 

“Yeah.” Adam agrees. He leans against the doorsill, crossing his arms. “Where you been? You’ve been gone a few days.”

“Windermere,” Thomas says, as if that answers it. Adam doesn’t even know where that is. “Reception was shit. Lovely neighbor though. Sweet girl.”

“I called. Texted,” Adam continues.

“Could you pass me a bowl please?” Thomas says, smooth at deflecting, because Adam has taught him that, to protect yourself you must put up walls, has made Thomas wary of his affection after constantly sweeping things under the rug and not talking about them. Adam is not built for relationships, he’s been in several that disintegrated before they could really begin, but for Thomas, he wants to try. He wants to be good to him, someday. 

Adam passes him the bowl.

“Have you been breaking into my flat?” Thomas asks, accepting the bowl Adam hands over. He appears not to know what to do with it, and clutches it over his chest.

“You knew?” 

“I could somehow _intuit_ —”

“I missed you,” Adam interrupts. “You gave me a key. It was an emergency.”

“I think we have very different ideas on what counts as an emergency,” Thomas says.

Again, Adam interrupts him, this time by taking the bowl from his hands and setting it down on the sink. Then he turns to face Thomas, his face completely serious. “I want to take you out,” he says slowly. “Will you let me take you out?”

“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing for the last year?”

“Is it?”

Thomas doesn’t blink. “I don’t know.”

“I think we’re doing this all wrong and out of order,” Adam says. “I’m still kind of in love with you, by the way. That hasn’t changed. If you wanted to know, anyway. And I’m not a sentimental person. But sometimes I can’t stop myself from saying how I feel. It’s hard to tamp down the impulse. When I get angry, or scared, or confused. You fucking terrify me, you know?”

Thomas still doesn’t blink. Then finally, he does, and Adam remembers to breathe again.“How am I terrifying?”

“It’s one thing to know what you want, but it’s another thing to chase after it,” Adam shrugs.

“So you want me,” Thomas states. Matter-of-fact. To the point. Because of course. Adam should expect nothing less. He starts to laugh.

“Of course I want you,” Adam sighs. “I always want you.”

It’s the truth. He won’t sugar coat it. Won’t lie. He’s past that now. Things need to move forward and the quickest way is through. So he barrels on.

Adam crowds Thomas against the sink, reaching over to flick the stove off before planting his hands on Thomas’ hips. He’s missed him. He smells so nice and Adam’s missed him and now Thomas is looking at him with his expression scrunched up, like Adam’s grown another head.

“I always want you,” Adam repeats, then cups Thomas’ face, peering into his eyes. He rubs a spot over Thomas’ cheek with his thumb, the skin flushed with sunburn. He’s the most infuriatingly beautiful person Adam’s ever met; he also happens to be the strangest. Adam hardly knows what to do with him when both of these facts collide.

“That’s always good to know,” Thomas mutters, right before Adam kisses him, straight on the mouth. “That what you want and what I want are essentially the same thing.”

“There’s a word for that,” Adam tells him, laughing harder when Thomas just groans and bites his lip, shoving him gently on the chest only to yank him back a second later. Their foreheads press; Adams gets a whiff of Thomas’ pomade.

“I’m sorry I left all of a sudden,” Thomas says into the space between their mouths, into the ensuing silence.

“Really,” Adam says, feeling a ridiculous warmth stabbing him in the chest. “It’s not the worst thing you’ve done.”

 

* * *

 

 

The night in which Adam first met Thomas ended poorly. 

This was true.

He’d been eyeing him for a while now, clear-headed and sober, all the while wishing he still drank because he wanted to come up to Thomas like some kind of creep and ask him if he was having a good time. Thomas came alone which made him a prime target for onlookers. 

They were at a pub. The exact name of the pub wasn’t important because they all looked a like. 

Eventually, Adam stuck to a tactic that seemed to work, which was kind of a dick move, but also something he’d seen done in a movie once. He needed to reevaluate his life choices. In the end, he decided to be an idiot and spilled his drink all over Thomas’ jacket while Thomas was standing in line to the bathroom and Adam happened to be headed in the opposite direction.

Later, he saw Thomas again, sans his jacket, the trim fit of his waistcoat highlighting the lean lines of his torso. He was sitting alone at the counter, flipping a coaster back and forth, decimating his second pint. Adam came up to him, just in time to hear someone lob an insult at Thomas,calling him a fucking poof after Thomas refused to have a drink him. 

Adam wasn’t even drunk so he didn’t have a legitimate excuse for what happened next. He didn’t get angry all that often anymore, not after A&A, but it was like someone had provoked him, touched fire to propane. He aimed a punch at the guy and then earned himself two in the face for his trouble before staggering flat on his ass on the grimy pub floor. 

People gave him a wide berth as he toppled. A shock of sobriety hit him like a lightning bolt, though it faded away just as quickly. He’d obviously lost his mind, standing up for a stranger who earlier in the night had insisted Adam pay for the damage inflicted on his expensive jacket. 

Now regret was sinking in: regret that he bothered at all and picked a fight with some random guy, that he tempered his strength and held back a bit. 

“Are you all right?”

It was Thomas.

“I’m Adam,” Adam said, because it seemed like the right thing to say. He blinked an eye open, then another. Then he groaned and clutched his face, felt the aching sting of a cut on his bottom lip where he’d bit it. He tasted blood. His entire face was besieged in pain. 

“That’s going to bruise,” Thomas pointed out, before crouching down next to him. He tilted his head to the side. 

Adam rolled his head around muggily, and blinked as the light behind Thomas shifted and seemed to halo his head. He groaned again, shut his eyes. 

“Can you stand, Adam?” Thomas asked.

Adam started to laugh despite the tightness in his jaw. He felt silly, lying there on the floor after getting hit in the face, defending some guy he just wanted fuck. But that was life. Fucked up and weird. That was his life, anyhow. And he was already getting used to it after thirty or so odd years.

Adam nodded, and then carefully, Thomas pulled him up to his feet, hauling him by the forearm. He was surprisingly strong for someone his size. Adam stared blatantly at the sharp planes of Thomas’ face made softer by the shitty pub lighting. He had long, fair eyelashes, a worried mouth. His hair was a dark tree bark-brown, and a lock slanted over one eye, freed from its neat part. 

After a few seconds, Adam shifted his focus and slid onto the nearest empty barstool, leaning his weight against the countertop, elbows-first.

Thomas was staring at him. “That was the worst punch I’d ever seen,” he said eventually, but he was smiling in the corners of his eyes and his lips. “But your tenacity is astounding. _Here_.”

He handed Adam a clean white handkerchief. Adam gave him a long look and declined the offer, lifting a hand in dismissal. “Right. Thanks.”

“I’d buy you a drink,” Thomas continued as he pocketed the handkerchief into a neat little square. “But I’m already on my way home, you see.”

Adam waved a hand again. “Don’t worry about it,” he assured Thomas and flashed a wincing smile in his’ direction, teeth coated in a thin film of blood. “I’m a recovering alcoholic anyway and I still owe you for the jacket.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
